Paint Protection
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3 min read
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Are There Any Additional Fees?
By
Noah Satho
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Milpitas, California
Why we get asked this so much
We’ve been getting this one a lot recently, and I think it’s because some businesses have gotten into the habit of charging card processing fees on top of the quote, or quoting a number and then letting the tax and the small stuff show up on the final bill. We don’t do that. The number on the invoice is the whole number, and it doesn’t change whether you pay by card or split it through Affirm. If you do finance it, the monthly terms are shown to you before you commit, and any interest on that plan is Affirm’s, nothing changes on our invoice. I like to keep it simple and easy to understand, with no surprises. If you’ve ever stood at a counter watching a total climb past the quote, you know exactly why.
What’s already in the number
The price you’re quoted covers the whole job. Every install starts with a full decontamination wash, a clay bar, and a machine polish, so the coating locks in a corrected finish instead of the swirls under it. Mild paint touch-up is in there too, things like mild rock chips or one or two deeper scratches with missing paint. The 15-year manufacturer warranty is included, with no annual fees and no inspection visits to keep it valid, and so is our own 30-day workmanship guarantee, where we redo the work or refund you in full if the finish doesn’t meet our standard. The only things that cost extra are the ones you’d expect to. Glass, trim, and wheel coatings are separate add-ons, and they’re listed on the proposal with their own prices before you pick anything. If your paint has damage that needs more than the included touch-up, we tell you at drop-off when we look the car over together, and you decide before any work starts. Those are the only two ways the number can move, and both of them happen before the work does.
The deposit, and what happens to it
The deposit is 50% of your total, and it’s what reserves the date. It comes straight off the invoice, so the rest is due once the service is done, and there’s nothing stacked on top of it. If your plans change more than 72 hours before the appointment, we refund the deposit in full to the card you paid with. Inside 72 hours it stays on your account as credit toward the job whenever you reschedule, so you don’t lose it either way, and no cancellation fee comes out of it. We’ve refunded over $66,000 in deposits to customers whose plans changed, and every one of them got the full amount back. The one question I still get after all of that is whether the price will be different once the car is in front of us. It’s the same number. We quote by vehicle size, and the paint correction is already part of the prep, so how the paint looks that day doesn’t move it. What I’m still working out is where on the proposal to say all of this, so the next person doesn’t have to ask at 10:35 at night.
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